Skeptics Dispute Climate Worries and Each Other (NY Times - Spot the spin)

The New York Times ^ | March 9, 2009 | Andrew Revkin

[CedarDave]

More than 600 self-professed climate skeptics are meeting in a Times Square hotel this week to challenge what has become a broad scientific and political consensus: that without big changes in energy choices, humans will dangerously heat up the planet.

Organizers say the discussions, which began Sunday, are intended to counter the Obama administration and Democratic lawmakers, who have vowed to tackle global warming with legislation requiring cuts in the greenhouse gases that scientists have linked to rising temperatures.

But two years after the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concluded with near certainty that most of the recent warming was a result of human influences, global warming’s skeptics are showing signs of internal rifts and weakening support.

...Kert Davies, a climate campaigner for Greenpeace, who is attending the Heartland event, said that the experts giving talks were “a shrinking collection of extremists” and that they were “left talking to themselves.”

...several climate scientists who are seeking to curb greenhouse gases strongly criticized the meeting. Stephen H. Schneider, a climatologist at Stanford University and an author of many reports by the intergovernmental climate panel, said, after reviewing the text of presentations for the Heartland meeting, that they were efforts to “bamboozle the innocent.”

Yvo de Boer, head of the United Nations office managing international treaty talks on climate change, said, “I don’t believe that what the skeptics say should provide any excuse to delay further” action against global warming.

[CedarDave]

It's always easy to spot the NY Times spin but not so easy to excerpt to the FR limit!

The three-day International Conference on Climate Change was organized by the Heartland Institute. Other articles posted on FR discuss presentations by climate scientists, Apollo astronaut Harrison Schmitt and the president of the Czech Republic, Vaclav Klaus.

What is missed by this article's author is that true scientists do what the IPCC should have done -- recognize that we are a long way from definitively explaining the variability in earth's climate and debate research needs and priorities, and not impose unnecessary penalties and unwarranted taxes on use of fossil fuels.

However, despite individual views on the importance of the oceans, the sun and other greenhouse gases, all agreed to one extent or another that blaming all climate change as man-made is erroneous. And others said the focus should be on synchronizing arguments being used against government plans to curb greenhouse gases. A representative from Senator Inhofe's office said it best: "“The only place where this alleged climate catastrophe is happening is in the virtual world of computer models, not in the real world.”

[GOP Poet]

A very positive development. Thank you for posting.

[CedarDave]

For your PING! lists.

[Brett66]

Anytime they cite “consensus” is an appeal to authority, but of course the NYT is not satisfied with that logical fallacy by itself, they go on to cite several other “experts” to criticize the skeptics.

[jimt]

Like the first sentence ! Around 10,000 rpm, I believe.

[xcamel]

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[ChicagahAl]

These people are neither skeptics nor deniers.

Science says that global warming and cooling is a natural cycle, and that the rise and fall of CO2 levels, LAGS the temperature cycle. It is warming that causes the CO2 rise, and cooling that causes the decrease in CO2, not the other way around.

The AGW movement is an enormous tax scam and the hoaxers are panicking. Temperatures have been falling for a decade, so CO2 will start decreasing soon. Once the atmospheric CO2 begins to decrease, without the Left being able to say that they were responsible for the decline, their scam is busted.

[CedarDave]

The "internal rifts" are true differences of opinions among the various scientists as to the importance of the climate variables. It's the way science has always moved forward.

The "weakening support" refers to the pull out of sponsorship by the energy and oil/gas companies like Exxon-Mobil and is trumpeted by environmentalists as proof energy companies recognize the reality of man-made global warming. However, given that their prior support was used as a hammer by the same environmentalists, the conference has more creditability without them.

Joseph Bast, the president of the Heartland Institute, said Exxon and other companies were just shifting their stance to improve their image. The Heartland meeting, he said, was the last bastion of intellectual honesty on the climate issue and "major corporations are painting themselves green around global warming.”

[<1/1,000,000th%]

Climate skeptics scientists are meeting in a Times Square hotel this week to challenge what has become a broad scientific and political consensus:...

Fixed.

[CedarDave]

Temperatures have been falling for a decade, so CO2 will start decreasing soon.

The lag is on the order of several centuries.

In any event, from the article:
"Many participants said that any division or dissent was minor and that the global recession and a series of years with cooler temperatures would help them in combating changes in energy policy in Washington."

[ChicagahAl]

"The lag is on the order of several centuries"

That lag exists, but there is also a lag of about a decade.

There are smaller cycles within the larger cycles.

[Nathan Zachary]

"More than 600 self-professed climate skeptics are meeting in a Times Square hotel this week to challenge what has become a broad scientific and political consensus: that without big changes in energy choices, humans will dangerously heat up the planet."

Yeah, that's why we are all freezing to death, because all this "carbon" is heating up the planet.

Further, C02 emissions in Europe have INCREASED, despite the taxes many EU countries have implemented on C02 emissions.

This further proves that TAXATION will not make global warming go away, no matter how hard and loud those "non- scientists" at the UN say it will.

P.S. David Suzuki is NOT a climatologist, he's a left wing kook from BC who paraded around acting as a biologist protesting the timber industry.

[Callahan]

Climate skeptics scientists are meeting in a Times Square hotel this week to challenge what has become a broad scientific and political consensus:...

Fixed

"Deniers of the One True Faith are meeting in a Times Square hotel this week to challenge what Earth God Barack Obama says is true and therefore must be."

Fixed

[<1/1,000,000th%]

LOL!

[secret garden]

When are the man-made global warming alarmists going to start explaining why Jupiter’s big red spot is shrinking? Someone needs to pass the word to the crazy cast of 24.

[jiggyboy]

one of the "self-professed" skeptics

[CedarDave]

P.S. David Suzuki is NOT a climatologist, he's a left wing kook from BC ...

Didn't see him quoted in the article. Did I miss it??

[jiggyboy]

Kert Davies, a climate campaigner for Greenpeace, who is attending the Heartland event, said that the experts giving talks were “a shrinking collection of extremists” and that they were “left talking to themselves.”

but

Organizers expected to top the attendance of about 500 at the first Heartland conference, held last year.

I guess the editor missed the contradiction in those two sentences right next to each other.

[jiggyboy]

John R. Christy, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Alabama who has long publicly questioned projections of dangerous global warming, most recently at a House committee hearing last month, said he had skipped both Heartland conferences to avoid the potential for “guilt by association.”

So we'll mention him here anyway, with neither lead-in nor follow-through, and then move on.

[M. Dodge Thomas]

CO2 will start decreasing soon. Once the atmospheric CO2 begins to decrease, without the Left being able to say that they were responsible for the decline, their scam is busted

I'd be happy to make you a $100 bet that yearly atmospheric CO2 levels will be at least 10ppm higher in 2019 than in 2009.